From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Why is it not possible to use "nil" any more in init files ? Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 09:22:09 -0500 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1416925379 5041 80.91.229.3 (25 Nov 2014 14:22:59 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 14:22:59 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Nov 25 15:22:52 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XtH11-0008N1-Ru for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 15:22:51 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57633 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtH11-0003SS-Ea for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 09:22:51 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:54438) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtH0g-0003RK-BC for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 09:22:37 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtH0Y-00041I-Fr for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 09:22:30 -0500 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:35959) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XtH0Y-00040s-AG for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 09:22:22 -0500 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XtH0W-0007xe-EW for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 15:22:20 +0100 Original-Received: from 69-165-162-82.dsl.teksavvy.com ([69.165.162.82]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 15:22:20 +0100 Original-Received: from monnier by 69-165-162-82.dsl.teksavvy.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 25 Nov 2014 15:22:20 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 23 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 69-165-162-82.dsl.teksavvy.com User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:y++TKtyf0Ze2bVGGzrdxHmJozOo= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:101162 Archived-At: > Thanks Stefan for this explanation. So IIUC that trick broke some correct > .emacs in order to magically fix some broken ones? Yup, and not just for .emacs files but also for calls made from one package to another. Basically, experience shows that *toggling* is very rarely what we want when writing the Elisp code. 99.9% of calls of the form (foo-mode nil) or (foo-mode) either were meant to enable the mode (the vast majority), or were meant to disable the mode (a minority, but not an insignificant one). A small proportion of those calls were correct (because the context made sure that the mode was always either enabled or disabled), but after yet-another bug report of someone not understanding why his font-lock was not enabled in such and such circumstance, I decided that it was time to break the small proportion of those minority cases which expected (and with reason) the call to disable the mode. This change was made more than 5 years ago, and it hasn't caused much of a ruckus and even fewer bug reports, so I think I made the right call. Stefan